Andy Warhol

C. Tyrrell Garth, Jr., Aspen (acquired directly from the artist)
John and Kimiko Powers, New York (acquired directly from the above)
Obelisk Gallery, Boston
Acquired by the present owner from the above in July 1990

Corpus Christi, Art Museum of South Texas, Johns, Stella, Warhol: Works in Series, October - November 1972, p. 34, illustrated in color

Rainer Crone, Das Bildnerische Werk Andy Warhols, Berlin, 1976, cat. no. 584
David Bourdon, Warhol, New York, 1989, pl. 254, p. 329, illustrated in color
Exh. Cat., Sydney, Museum of Contemporary Art (and travelling), Andy Warhol: Portraits of the Seventies and Eighties, 1993-1994, cat. no. 3, illustrated in color
Mamoru Yonekura, Andy Warhol, Tokyo, 1993, cat. no. 77, illustrated in color
Exh. Cat., New York, Gagosian Gallery, Pop Art: The John and Kimiko Powers collects ion, New York, 2001, p. 10, illustrated in color
Neil Printz and Sally King-Nero, eds., The Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné: Paintings and Sculptures 1970-1974, Vol. 03, New York, 2010, cat. no. 2182, pp. 106-107, illustrated in color

This work is in very good condition overall. There is evidence of light wear and handling along the edges, including some light hairline craquelure at the pull margins. The colors are bright, fresh and clean. There are faint stretcher bar impressions visible along all four edges visible under close inspection. There is an outward-protruding impression to the right of the figure's face. There are scattered black media accretions from the t.mes of execution, which are inherent to the artist's working method. There are some light surface abrasions in the figure's hair, visible under raking light. Under Ultraviolet light inspection, there is no evidence of restoration. Unframed.
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By 1972, John and Kimiko Powers of Carbondale, Colorado and New York City had already amassed one of the largest collects ions of Pop Art. What stemmed from John Powers’ collaboration with Harry N. Abrams to publish Dr. H.W. Janson’s History of Art was a passionate, intellectual and highly focused endeavor that is exemplified by the longstanding relationship between the couple and Andy Warhol. No longer painting portraits solely based off of magazine photographs or movie posters, Warhol had been increasingly tapped to immortalize the upper echelons of society with his trademark colorful silkscreens—a move that David Bourdon astutely noted achieved “a stylish and flattering portrait by a famous artist who was himself a certified celebrity…the possession of great wealth and power might do for everyday life, but the commissioning of a portrait by Warhol was a sure indication that the sitter intended to secure posthumous fame as well” (David Bourdon, Warhol, New York, 1989, p. 327).

John Powers commissioned Warhol to make twenty-five 40-by-40 inch canvases of Kimiko, clad in a traditional Japanese kimono with an elegantly styled chignon. Once assembled as a whole, the colossal portrait stood at 200-by-200 inches in total, eclipsing Warhol’s own 80-by-144 inch groundbreaking 1963 commission, Ethel Scull 36 t.mes s. The present work, however, is not.mes rely an attempt to infuse Kimiko’s image with an aura of celebrity, as many of Warhol's society portraits were. Instead, she is conveyed as a woman with grace, elegance and flair but there is a mystery in her eyes that the viewer cannot penetrate. Though we are given the illusion of intimacy, it is merely a lesson in the art of performance, seduction and high society.

The monumental portrait was only exhibited once in its entirety—the Powers’ had already agreed on its division with Warhol—at the inaugural show at the Art Museum of South Texas in Corpus Christi. Titled Johns, Stella, Warhol: Works in Series, the exhibition was David Whitney’s first as an independent curator and served to validate the serial nature of Warhol’s oeuvre. By featuring the Kimiko Powers group in Philip Johnson’s awe-inspiring atrium as the centerpiece of the exhibition, Whitney further heralded the significance of both the work and Warhol’s portraiture as a whole.